UCLA Math's Artem Chernikov Receives 2016 Sloan Research Fellowship

Three exceptional young UCLA professors are among 126 scientists and scholars in the United States and Canada to receive 2016 Sloan Research Fellowships.

The fellowships are awarded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to early-career scientists and scholars “whose achievements and potential identify them as rising stars, the next generation of scientific leaders,” according to the New York–based foundation.

“Fellows represent the best-of-the-best among young scientists,” said Paul Joskow, president of the Sloan Foundation.

UCLA’s 2016 recipients are:

Leonardo Bursztyn
Bursztyn, assistant professor of economics at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, uses field experiments to understand how people make education, consumption and financial decisions, and how those decisions are shaped by the social environment. He has also studied public education spending in Brazil and the impact of Western television on consumption behavior.

Artem Chernikov
Chernikov is an assistant professor of mathematics in the UCLA College and a member of the UCLA Logic Center. His main research interest is a branch of mathematical logic called model theory, and its applications to algebra, geometry and computer science. He won the 2013 Sacks prize for the best thesis of the year worldwide in mathematical logic.

Elaine Hsiao
Hsiao, an assistant professor of integrative biology and physiology, studies the trillions of microbes the body contains that impact health and disease, and seek to understand how they influence the brain and behavior. Among the questions she investigates are how these microbes communicate with the nervous system and their effects on the nervous system.

Sloan Research Fellowships are intended to enhance the careers of exceptional young scientists and scholars in chemistry, computer science, economics, mathematics, computational and evolutionary molecular biology, neuroscience, ocean sciences and physics. The philanthropic foundation was established in 1934.